


Good Boy

by sallyamongpoison



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Abuse, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Narcissism, Physical Abuse, mention of blood magic ritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:30:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4756637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyamongpoison/pseuds/sallyamongpoison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian is struck by memories of his parents, specifically his mother, and must come to terms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Boy

_Fingers on his cheek. They’re delicate but strong. Smooth from creams and oils that leave the skin smelling like something sweet and floral. His mother’s hands. They’re caressing his face while she murmurs to him._

_“My good boy. My sweet, sweet boy,” Aquinea’s voice is soft and warm, slurred. She’s kneeling beside his bed and running her fingers over his cheek and through his hair that’s only just been cut short at Halward’s demand. No son of his, apparently, would go to a Circle looking like an unkempt urchin. His mother had mourned the soft, coal black curls that morning, and now she was crouched beside his bed reeking of floral hand cream and wine. He’s leaving in the morning. Away. Far away._

_“Mother?”_

_“Shh,” she soothes him gently and brushed her fingers over his cheek again so he can feel the sharp ends of her nails. Young as Dorian is, he knows it’s fashionable to file them to points and lacquer them. They scratch lightly and it makes his skin itch. “You be a good boy for me,” Aquinea goes on, “you have to be a good boy.”_

\--

Something floral hit his nose and suddenly Dorian was a thousand leagues and twenty years away from the present. He could feel the soft blankets curling around his hands and smell the cool breeze coming in from the garden even as he walked along the ramparts toward the library. The cold air of Skyhold was replaced by warm summer sun, sounds of servants moving through the house, and the sudden feeling that he was being watched. That wasn’t unusual. Even now, months since they’d come to Skyhold, people still watched him. In his mind, too, people watched him. Servants and nannies and guests always watched him. Dorian Pavus was a spectacle: always had been.

He hadn’t expected to be thrown so far back into his memories from the smell. His eyes were watering, chin itching from the phantom scratch of his mother’s nails, and her words were ringing in his head like bells. Dorian felt his knees shake, stomach dropping to the stone far below him, and he retched. “Maker,” he breathed in attempt to pull a breath in through his rapidly-closing throat. His heart was pounding painfully hard, threatening to leap out of his chest, and he fought to keep himself focused while his vision swam with black around the edges.

No. His mother and father were far away from Skyhold. They had no power over him now. Halward had already made an appearance and Dorian had turned him away. He’d done that. He’d made that choice.

\--

_Halward’s eyes are dark and hooded. Their meal is silent as all three members of the House pick at the fine meal prepared for them. The air is thick. Behind them, the servants shift uncomfortably. Dorian wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to be in Carastes, where he had been for a few months, but Halward had to collect him. This was his first evening home. No one was pleased._

_His father had already voiced his displeasure on the entire trip home. Dorian had listened to hours of lectures, of outrage, and of disappointment. The disappointment had been the worst. There was nothing he hated more than seeing Halward’s eyes narrow like that. His father’s approval had been so hard to get, and now it seemed like what little he had was gone. And for no reason! Dorian had been better than the others! He’d shown them he was better, and then was punished for it. It didn’t make any sense!_

_When the meal is over Halward leaves him with his mother. Aquinea is quiet, the cup just to her left is always full, and she is studying Dorian’s face. Her features are still so beautiful, but for now they’re dark and angry. His nine years old and he’s never seen his mother so angry at him. She gets to her feet and gestures for Dorian to follow, which he does, and she doesn’t turn to look at him until they’re in her salon. She's glaring and he feels so small._

_“Moth-”_

_His face suddenly hurts and Dorian’s stumbled to the side. One of his hands lifts to his cheek that burns. She hit him. Slapped him. Aquinea has never hit him in his life._

_“I told you to be good, Dorian,” his mother hisses at him, “why can’t you ever do as you’re told and just be a good boy?”_

\--

His work was completely derailed for the rest of the day. Dorian’s chest had ached, breathing had been hard, and he’d gone back to his rooms to crawl into bed and pull the blankets over him. Right now he needed to hide. The thought of having to speak to someone made him feel even more sick than he did already. Whatever this was, an anxiety attack or something else, was wrecking him from the inside out.

Dorian’s breath was coming out in sharp pants as he lost himself to his thoughts. It had been a long time since he’d fallen into one of these fits. When he’d left his family home, drifted for years, he found himself suffering from moments like this whenever he let himself be sober. Memories of his life were so present and suffocating that he’d had to drink and fuck until he was nearly blinded and completely walled away from that part of himself. They still happened, though it hadn’t happened since he’d joined the Inquisition, and every time it came as surprise. It shouldn’t have been, but that remembered feeling of his cheek burned by his mother’s magic in her anger was something that made his insides clutch hard until his muscles ached.

\--

_“He’s done so well, you must be so proud. It’s a testament to your family to have such a powerful heir.”_

_Aquinea’s smile is pristine. She’s not sober but doesn’t smell of wine for the moment. Dorian knows that’s an enchantment that she’s cultivated over the years. Anything to look like the loving matriarch of the family. She soaks up the praise and digs her fingers into Dorian’s arm. He’s trying hard not to make a face, lest the wrath he face later put him back in the locked room they’d roused him from for this little dinner party._

_“Our Dorian is such a_ good boy _. Now that he’s back home there’s been no problems at all. Isn’t that right, my dearest?”_

_Dorian tenses. He doesn’t want to speak. If he speaks it will only fuel his mother’s narcissism. She’s basking in the glow of someone’s praise. It’s been so long since anyone’s said something kind about their family and Aquinea is practically preening. All of her efforts to ease the scandal seem to be rewarded and Dorian can see how it makes her so happy. If it weren’t ridiculous he might have been happy for her._

_“I’m...happy to be home.” his voice is quiet. It sounds as flat as his expression looks. His mother’s fingers are in his arm again and squeezing like she means to break the skin. Perhaps she does._

_“As I said,” his mother turns to him and smiles. There’s fire burning in her eyes. He’ll be back in his rooms by nightfall._

\--

Sweat covered Dorian’s skin. In his rooms, nice as they were, he was feeling the closeness of the walls. He couldn’t bring himself to get up, however. He was confined. Locked in. Not really, but his mind was back in that place. He wasn’t the Inquisition’s Dorian anymore. He was...he was the pariah of Hause Pavus. A prisoner.  By then he was little more than an asset to be presented when the time was right. Halward had been at his wit’s end, and Aquinea...his mother... _Maker_.

Looking back, the disappointment from his father had been the hardest thing to stomach at the time. All his life he’d wanted his father to believe in him, be proud, but in the end there was nothing to be proud of. Not just because Dorian had been rebellious either. There was no pride in his son but in his product. When he got older he’d realized as much and that desperation in him had faded. It had been easy to digest. His mother, however…

\--

_He’s trembling. His sweating and shaking and both feverishly hot and freezing cold at the same time. Water streaks down his body, salty and painful against the bruises and scrapes and scratches. He’s been punished. Whipped. His perfectly bronzed skin has been kissed by a lash like he’d never known in his youth. Perhaps if it had he wouldn’t have to endure this now. Regardless, he’s sputtering and swearing and there’s always more waiting. Always at her command._

_Warm fingers touch his chin and his head is lifted where it sags against his chest. Dorian can smell the floral cream and it makes his stomach knot. His mother. His mother had sat there and let them hurt him. His mother, who once upon a time stroked his hair and told him that he was hers alone, and she let them hurt him. More than that, she seemed to enjoy it._

_“Will you listen now, my dearest?” her voice is like honey. His skin burns from the salt and the lash and he whimpers. Anything to make her happy. Anything to make the pain stop._

_“Mother,” he whispers and presses his cheek into her hand. Aquinea’s nails trail over his chin like they’d done that night and his skin itches. If he appeases her then there’s the chance that this will stop. Halward held the name to the family, certainly, but it was Aquinea’s magic that made Dorian the perfect son. She is in control, and whatever she decides...Halward listens. It had taken Dorian far too many years to understand that._

_She cups his face and kisses his brow, “My good boy. My sweet son,” then smiles like the snake curled around their crest. In these moments Dorian recognizes everything: Halward groomed him for politics, but he’d been his mother’s creature since birth. His magic is her own, and his disobedience is her failing. She can’t see him beyond herself and he must be punished for stepping out of line._

_“Tell me you love me, Dorian,” Aquinea demands. Her voice is warm but like iron. He knows not to disobey._

_He shivers under her touch, “I love you...mother,” and takes a breath. Now he’s waiting to see if he’s done it right. Four times already they’ve danced this dance, and every time it wasn’t good enough._

_Aquinea’s eyes are the same as his own: grey and silver and sharp. They see so much. She’s searching. She’s making sure he’s obeying down to his core. Then they soften. “Ah, there’s my good boy. Such a good boy,” she tells him and gestures for him to be allowed to his feet, “I was missing you, my Dorian.”_

_He’s allowed to be looked after by a healer, a private one, and put to bed. What he wants now is to be locked away and alone so he can lose himself in his anger, but Aquinea stays and pets his hair. She’s his mother, after all. He finds himself sobbing, wishing that she weren’t and that the pretty words she says weren’t just things meant to harm. As he cries she pulls his head into her lap and hums softly to him until he calms down. It’s comforting somehow and she knows it._

\--

“Good boy. Be a good boy,” Dorian had been repeating the phrase over and over again. This attack was different. It was harsh. It reminded him of too much and he needed to clear his head. Nothing helped, though. He couldn’t work, couldn’t spar, couldn’t let his mind be made empty.

It was late in the night when he finally got to his feet. He’d been in his rooms since before midday, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. Racing thoughts had made the day longer. Someone had come to ask him something, a messenger, and he’d yelled for them to leave. It felt like a dream more than his dreams had felt like dreams. He’d been lost in his own head.

Now he needed to reconnect with the present. He needed to feel the cold of the South on his skin so it might chase away the scent of his locked rooms and her perfume. Dorian needed to remind himself that he wasn’t a creature. He was a man. He wasn’t an extension of his family’s power, but instead a talent all his own. A breath moved through his chest more easily and he pushed open the door.

As though of their own volition, Dorian’s feet took him to Cullen’s tower. He traveled there almost daily now, and he couldn’t stop himself. The cold air felt good against his skin, and when he pressed a hand against the thick wood Dorian couldn’t help but take in the roughness against his hand. This was the present. This was safety. Even in a keep as large as Skyhold he still had that feeling of safety. The door he touched right now? Behind it was one of the places he felt as though nothing could touch him. Well, nothing bad anyway.

He let himself in and took in how dark and warm it was. Immediately panic rose in Dorian’s chest as he leaned back against the door, memories threatening to take him again, but he forced them down. Cullen was at his desk, and when he looked up his honey-brown eyes were fond. That grounded him. This way alright. He was safe. Those locked rooms were far away now.

“What’s wrong?” Cullen asked, his expression sliding into something more concerned as he watched Dorian for a moment. After where his mind had been all day, Dorian could only imagine what he looked like. He hadn’t even combed his hair or fixed the clothes he’d slept in all day, but he didn’t even care. All he wanted was to be somewhere that would help clear his head.

He stumbled, though perhaps not physically, and lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. Cullen often did the same thing when his head was hurting, and Dorian suspected that was where he’d picked it up. “Long day,” he answered, “can I tear you away for some time?”

“Chess?”

 _Maker, yes._ Dorian nodded and let the smallest smile move across his features. This was real comfort.

\--

_He’s being taken down to the cellar. After days of being locked up, this time, and ignored he’s finally allowed out of his rooms. This time, however, the servants’ faces are pale as they watch the stable hand drag him nearly kicking and screaming to the stairs. He’s begging now. Anything to keep what’s going to happen from coming to fruition. Why couldn’t they listen? How could anyone think that this was the answer to any problem?_

_“We tried everything,” Halward’s words wash over him and they’re as cold as the salt water that poured over him after the lash. There’s a disconnect in his tone, but the words still shake. This isn’t personal. This isn’t about Dorian, his son, this is about the Pavus product. The heir._

_Aquinea’s eyes are bright, perhaps with fever or drink, and she hisses at him. They’ve planned the unthinkable and he’s begging for them to see reason. For his mother to see reason. He’s her creature, an extension of herself, and she wants to change him into something else. Why? How would that help?_

_The ritual is about to begin, and just before they start his mother comes to him and lifts his chin. There’s no gentleness to it now. “Don’t be scared, my dearest,” she tells him, “when this is done you’ll finally be my good boy. You’ll listen and you’ll make us_ so happy _.”_

\--

Cullen struggled with nightmares regularly. He’d seen his share of demons in the Fade, ones that tried to break his mind, and it still haunted him. The man had blood on his hands, the blood of mages, and that haunted him too. There were nights he screamed until his throat was raw and his mind was exhausted. Dorian should have hated him. He should have hated crawling into bed with him after too many drinks and how Cullen didn’t seem to mind. The man was insufferably understanding, but now it was Dorian’s turn to understand.

They’d spoken on that time in Kinloch Hold on a night not unlike this one. Cullen hadn’t been able to sleep, wracked with anxiety and a lack of lyrium in his system, and Dorian stayed with him. He’d spent nights in the Fade, plied with every temptation known to man by demons, but he’d never been tortured. Not by actual spirits, anyway. Dorian had listened then and Cullen was listening now. Or he would have been if Dorian were talking.

They’d gone to Cullen’s bed. He’d slept, but woke up screaming. Cullen was patient, only touching when given permission, and sat beside him until he eased. Every time he closed his eyes he was put in that same moment, and it burned like fire in him. The fits hadn’t been this bad in years. Cullen, however, stayed quiet. He was just a comforting presence at Dorian’s side. There was no expectation, and Dorian appreciated that.

After a while he rolled over and tucked himself in against the strong, pale chest that had been keep a gentle rhythm at his back for most of the night. Neither said a word, but Cullen tucked an arm around Dorian’s torso to keep him close. Dorian had done as much for Cullen a few times and he realized now just how good it was to have someone there that just _understood_. He didn’t need to explain, could if he wanted, but he wasn’t expected to. The sound of Cullen’s heartbeat brought him back to the real world, soothed him, and let him drift without going backward.

Finally, Cullen ran a hand along Dorian’s spine. Every touch kept him grounded. He could focus on the thick, gentle fingers and the rub of the scratchy blanket. This was Skyhold. This was Skyhold and this was _Cullen_. He didn’t have to be anything other than Dorian now. He could sleep, fall a little more into Cullen’s arms, and be safe. Just dreams. No blood, no pain, no demands. Just sleep.

 _“There’s my good boy.”_  


End file.
